songanddancegirl

GINSBERG

ALLEN GINSBERG CHANTED+DANCED LIKE A FLOPPY CHILD

And Timothy Leary  deary   coined his famous saying: Turn On

Tune In   Drop Out   Did you know he was a Harvard man?  Fed so

much free LSD to Kerouac’s sidekick Neal Cassady  that he  ended up

face down in a dusty Mexican town  circa 1968    could not resuscitate

Daddy considered these guys a generation of swine  +would soon come

to include Mick  among it’s minions   But then Lee was more Thelonius  +

Bird   + Reefer    You do not mess with old guard jazz cats under any

circumstances    So much cooler than anyone called a beatnik   or god forbid

a boomer!

First gen Jazzers did not have to organize Be-Ins   They just  WERE     Lived

through the Great Depression   Prohibition  +rampant racism   Through Jungle-

Music  Storyville  Big Band  +Bop    They knew that only the toughest of the tough

would make it through   On the other side of WW II  old Satch had angina   +by 67

segregation  + Vietnam fuelled sit-ins   The Summer of Love but a blip   before The

Modern Reign of Hate

Ginsberg’s KADDISH was published in 61  prescient dirge for the new millennium:

Terror that woke the neighbours  old ladies on the second floor recovering from

menopause  all those rags between thighs   sorry over lost babies   husbands ashen

at 40   varicosed  nude  fat   doomed

Today ISIS captured 400 Syrian refugees  there in the desert for the taking   While

daily  thousands make the treacherous winter crossing to Lesbos    Terror crouches

Politicians ban the term: World War III    WE’VE GOT THIS!   chortles Hilary

Walking home on freezing TO streets  it’s -17   Did you know that Pope Francis

visited the largest synagogue in Rome today?  Only the 3rd Pope to do so!  Jews

corralled for centuries into the Ghetto adjacent   There Francis gave the Holocaust

survivors present   a standing ovation

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 MOURNER’S  KADDISH

 Winter 2016

JUNKIE

WE KNOW MAJOR TOM’S A JUNKIE

In the Man Who Fell To Earth  David Bowie plays

an alien who visits our little green planet 3rd from

the sun   He ends up depressed +cripplingly addicted

to booze + tv   Clearly you don’t have to be an alien to

suffer the dead-eyed malaise of life in the new millenium

At dinner parties everywhere people hunker down +discuss

the ins+outs of Jamie Mackenzie’s rape on Outlander  where

scenes of savage sadism have you running for the booze trolley

at every opportunity

2016 Highball: 

your favourite Opoid

100% Agave Tequila or 18 yr. old Lagavulin

filtered water  + an Epi-pen

It’s time to  face the strange   Last night CNN pre-empted Downton Abbey: 

where the heiress loses her virginity to an Indian man  who proceeds to die

in flagrante delicto   Even the maids snigger as his body is hoisted out of

her bed   Make that 2 Opoids in your Highball  /shaken not stirred

Instead of the sexual exploits  of bloated aristocrats  we listened to Barack’s

State Of The Union  He assured us that: terrorists  making bombs in garages+

apartments are not a threat to the Nation itself  though certainly to civilians

We will root them out  We will get them  Think Osama Bin Laden

So we did   and then headed back to the booze trolley for more  a la Martha+George

Be Afraid    In Barack’s nation  about 20,000 strong end it with a gun  annually

David Bowie now in heaven  knew that:  isolation  abandonment   fear  +anxiety

would catch up with Major Tom  who recently traded his protein pills for Oxycontin

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Martha  Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf

Winter 2016  RIP David Bowie

FAKE

WE FAKE IT SO REAL WE ARE BEYOND FAKE

We live in a world where teenaged Khloe Kardashian

has 18 million followers  on Twitter   +a new reality tv

show called: Kocktails with Khloe   aka:  I have the

greatest life inanity   Khloe says: Its such an organic fit

its easy for me    She  Goddess of the selfie   aims to outdo

sister’s greased backside +naked greed

In her book Bossypants  Tina Fey notices that nowadays

every girl is expected to have: a California tan   a Jamaican

dance-hall ass   hips of a 9 yr. old boy   the arms of Michelle

Obama   + doll tits

In ancient Greece there were but 4 elements: air  earth  water  

+fire   Simpler times?   Women were both slaves + courtesans

but then men  +children too  suffered enslavement    The Earth

was ruled by a pantheon of Gods  many vengeful   one cute   with

a bow+arrow in tow  On Februrary 14th chocolates+dildos will be

sold in his name

In 2015 we added 4 new elements to the Periodic Table  their names

will give your tongue a workout  pre Valentine’s Day :  ununtrium

ununpentium ununseptium ununoctium  now we have 118    But this

gorgeous complexity of matter has done nothing to stanch the tide of

our bloated mass celebration of self adoration   Minions worship Jobs+

Zuckerberg

In the USA today  two thirds of all gun deaths are suicides  and the nation

turns its lonely eyes to Sean Penn  Zelig-saviour  here there +everywhere

But is it altruism or narcissism that makes him tick?  And why are so many

Americans looking for the EXIT sign?

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Winter 2016

ALCHEMY

MODERN ALCHEMY

the smallish mouth of donald

spins large-ish amounts of bullshit

while justin transmutes jeeps into

killing machines for rich saudi savages

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“There’s man all over for you, blaming on his

boots the faults of his feet.”

(Beckett  Waiting for Godot)

Winter 2015

RANGY

SHE WAS AN ATTRACTIVE RANGY WOMAN

FROM ONTARIO  WITH A CURLY HEAD OF HAIR*

*(Margaret Wente: The Girl Who Brought Cosby Down

Globe & Mail  January 5, 2016)

It’s hard to tell these days if someone is taking your

picture   Think: crotch shot guy   Trinity Bellwoods

Park   Summer 2015    But it’s likely that the good

looking semite beside me is  unabashedly     As I sit

legs akimbo in thigh high black suede  kitten heeled

boots

My fantasy: College boy is having a Mrs Robinson

moment  dreaming of me  as he strokes his hipster 

beard    Somewhere around the centre of the boardroom

table  at the Shulich School (poet embedded among cocksure

MBA’s)  hipster dude  +Anne Bancroft lookalike  unite

I won’t candy coat it   It is messy   Sweet potato fries fly by

as forbidden fruit is crushed underfoot   Hey Mister  there are

no right angles in nature

Ms. Wente firmly believes that Bill Cosby will be remembered as:

America’s creepy uncle  + a lot of rich   +famous  +powerful men  

will be thinking hard  before they prey on women   I want some of

what Margaret is on

Retribution Divine: Mr. Cosby is old+feeble  He is nearly blind  He will

never be remembered as America’s Dad  +his daughter will have to tell

herself a story in order to live    + btw Bill  Viagra is no panacea

__

Winter 2015

HENRY

O HENRY GIBSON  O HENRY GIBSON

Sitting across from Robards Library  writing a

city poem   Ugly dinosaur looms up up  Wicked

wind tunnel below makes young you wish she

had stayed in burbs   Screw higher education

But everyday you made the trek in a Dodge Monaco

with almost no gas  Slimy little brother used it to

chase poon on freezing Manor nights

Today is a new day  +after skirting the advances of Law

School don  you cruise home to sounds of: Candy’s Room

Already tasting the baked potato your gorgeous mother

will have waiting

At night in your room  you read her a few lines from Henrik Ibsen’s

A Doll’s House  and wish that she were more Thelma & Louise than

Hedda  or Nora  But you won’t take shit from no Torvald  now will you

College girl?

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Winter 2016

POEM

POEM FOR A FREEZING DAY

Emma Donohue wrote ROOM about a man

who had 7 children with his daughter  in a

bunker beneath his house   His wife lived up

stairs too   There should be more than 1 word

for love

No doubt there was an opulence+mystery to

everything seen by the survivors   Some suffered

breakdowns   Scoured souls unable to rise again

like spoiled kundalini  at the base of your spine

The tatt at the base of mine  is not  holy ironic:

damn right you will rise again   bluey-black+inky

Nor ironic  is the Vatican’s review of the new Star Wars

film   Calling it: confused+hazy   Failing spectacularly

in its representation of evil    Going even further   The Holy

Seer  calls the villain:  insipid  

Compared to what?  or whom?  I ask you    They purport

to have the inside scoop on evil  +many believe they do

One might wish apologies were more plentiful   though we

know that evil is not exonerate-able    Just ask the survivors

of ROOM

Today it is  -14    Winter sky umber  +blue    If you look closely

immersing yourself in tiny everyday miracles  you will see  that

those aren’t clouds   they’re stairs

On Saturday  George  garrulous goblin  owner of the Windsor Arms Hotel

thundered at my husband +me:  RENEW YOUR VOWS!   I do    and

so should you   Let us vow not to squander any escape routes proffered

twenty-four-seven   three-six-one

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And when the camel knelt to let me mount it

Winged angels knelt in silhouette

(Fredrick Seidel  Ooga Booga Poems   2006)

Deep Winter  2016

EDEN

TEN THOUSAND KILOMETRES WEST OF EDEN

They’re sending ZamZam to Edmonton  That’s where

she will be re-settled   It’s -23 +grey for 6 months  then

mosquitos the size of buicks descend  then it’s winter

all over again

ZamZam hails from a town near the azure waters of the

Mediterranean  4 1/2 yrs. in a makeshift tent  after fleeing

Idlib Syria  Both her babies born refugees  now 2+3   Think:

dark   as an adjective   dream   as a verb

Goodbye to dark city of her bombed out birth  Middle class

family  left father 70 to his fate  Neighbours dead of starvation

Dream BIG    ZamZam a woman known: to take great care of

her looks  (who wrote this article? a man or woman? Globe+Mail

December 10  2015)  Husband’s toilette not disclosed

There is a list: lipstick  eye kohl  nail polish  hair oil  loofah   details

intimate +claustrophobic   Leave them kids alone   Barely out of their

teens  Husband Iwan: I’ve heard the Koran might not be allowed in

Canada

Clearly they watched the Niqab controversy on tv   They are

allowed to bring one suitcase each   But the elixir made from their

suffering  is weightless   To date the holy grail cannot be detected by

airport security    Welcome to the frozen hinterland  of the free

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Winter Solstice 2015

CALIFORNY

THE NAKED FEET OF THE DEAD PHOSPHORESCENT IN CALIFORNY

Barack was on tv  late last night  He confirmed

what we all imagined: urban sprawl terrorism

is embedded in the heartland  +won’t be ferreted

out by boots on the ground   Obama explained  we

must stop selling weapons to folks on the no fly list  

It’s insane

And at the edge of the abyss this business of hope festers

Tashfeen Malik’s heart  dried+blackened now   Ms. Malik

radicalized mother  + partner in slaughter  San Bernardino

California   Her 6 month old daughter will live her mother’s

gold rush dreams   After foster-care   in eternity

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Californy  a land rich in minerals   in gold and silver    I would say

beyond the wildest speculation  (Cormac McCarthy  Blood Meridian)

Winter  2015

BRIGITTE

BRIGITTE BARDOTAGE

An aging Brigitte doppelgånger followed me after

the show:  Rickie Lee Jones   The Other Side of Desire

Brigitte fell into paroxysms of grief for her lost youth

Right there on the street in front of the Lightbox theatre

she shrieked: They throw you away like a used kleenex 

I’d offered her some  but she demurred    Tears +mucous

mixed with mascara  + MAC’s  Exaltation  flowed     The

alchemical dictionary defines exaltation as:  an operation

by which matter is altered    elevated to a  higher dignity

of substance+virtue

How’s this for you: at some point beauty reaches redundancy

then becomes something else   Now the lodestone of dumb daily

obstruction  Under that ruby-red lipstick a hint of the soul clings

Brigitte:  focus on the smooth little pebbles  striped+stippled  the

ones you carried back from a riverbed   Now bend your knee like a

pagan primitive  +ask for:  mild happiness   mild ecstasy   +sacred

ordinary    And you will be free    The wheel will stop + let you off

on Ossington St.   at this little hut where they make  Mac+Cheese  

The hipster chef  a Fisher King

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Longest Night  Yule  2015